


take me to the limit, hold me down there

by nirav



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Soccer AU, because why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 16:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20510216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: “Water break!” Yang yells out over Glynda, pointing angrily over towards the sidelines.  “Now!”  She glares back at Glynda until she relents and throws her hands up, and the team trudges over towards the benches.  Yang jogs over and plants herself in front of Blake, arms folded over her chest.  “Not you.  Let’s talk.”“I’m--”“Going to listen to your captain,” Yang says firmly.  “Either over there, where no one else will listen, or right here, so everyone can listen.  Your choice.”





	take me to the limit, hold me down there

**Author's Note:**

> [thecousinsdangereux](https://thecousinsdangereux.tumblr.com/) told me to write a soccer au to get out of a writing rut, so here's a soccer au to theoretically get me out of a writing rut.

A whistle sounds out over the rain, shrieking loud enough that everyone winces.

“Again!”

“For fuck’s sake, Glynda!” Yang bellows out, one foot kicking out at the muddy ground under her and arms flying out in irritation, not an ounce of concern for propriety left in her. Maybe she would care about yelling at the manager if they hadn’t spent the last forty minutes playing in the rain, but who knows at this point. “Just call it, will you?”

Glynda folds her arms over her chest, glare evident even from half a field away, and blows the whistle again. “Run it again!”

“I swear to God.” Yang’s gloves creak around her fists. 

“Keep talking shit and she’s going to take that captain’s armband away,” Weiss says, hands on her knees, her whole left side covered in mud. 

“If it gets me a shower then I literally could not care less,” Yang says. She absently bumps her fist against Pyrrha’s on her way back to the mouth of the goal. “It’s the front line that’s fucking this up, can’t she let the rest of us just go home?”

“Apparently not,” Velvet says with a groan. 

Yang picks up the wet ball with a grimace. “Let’s get it right this time, okay?” She yells out before punting the ball halfway down the field for the other half of the team to collect and bring back downfield and try and time the exact same cross they’ve screwed up four times so far. 

Ruby brings the ball down easily, flicking it over to Penny and sending the offense back upfield. Yang tracks left with the ball, keeping the posts in her periphery and watching as Penny plays the ball out wide to Winter to once more play the switch over to the new girl-- Blake, the obnoxiously hot one who won’t talk to anyone, all dark hair and brooding silences and refusing to join any of the rest of them for drinks ever-- so she can ricochet it back in for Coco to split between Pyrrha and Velvet. 

Except the switch from Winter is a half step late this time, her pacing off and still expecting Nora to be the one sprinting up the wings, a step slower than Blake’s unnaturally quick pace. Yang lets out a strangled yell when Glynda’s whistle sounds again.

“Water break!” Yang yells out over Glynda, pointing angrily over towards the sidelines. “Now!” She glares back at Glynda until she relents and throws her hands up, and the team trudges over towards the benches. Yang jogs over and plants herself in front of Blake, arms folded over her chest. “Not you. Let’s talk.”

“I’m--”

“Going to listen to your captain,” Yang says firmly. “Either over there, where no one else will listen, or right here, so everyone can listen. Your choice.”

Blake’s chin tilts up, glare defiant and stubborn and infinitely more attractive than Yang wants to give it credit for, and her hands clench into fists visibly at her side. 

“Fine,” she mutters out after a long moment. She stalks off back towards the center of the field, mopping her forehead uselessly with her soaked-through shirt-- from sweat or rain, there’s no telling, but Yang follows, just as uselessly shaking rainwater off her gloves.

“You need to play nice with the rest of the team,” Yang says without preamble. “I get that you’re a bigass superstar and faster than everyone on the field, but you’re not the only one on the field.”

“I’m not going to slow down to--”

“Yes,” Yang snaps out. “You are. Because this isn’t  _ your _ team, Belladonna. It’s been around since before you joined two seconds ago and it’ll be around after you, too. We’re a good team, and that midfield you’re pretending you’re too good to be a part of is  _ excellent _ , and if you can’t learn to work with them then I’ll make sure you’re benched until your contract is up. Understood?”

Blake blinks at her, jerking back, defiance slipping out of her eyes. “I don’t--” she mutters. “I don’t think I’m too good to play with them,” she finishes weakly. 

“Then you need to check on your attitude,” Yang says, folding her arms over her chest. “Winter can be bitchy, but she can play this switch in her sleep. You need to stop playing to where you want the ball to go and play to where your team is going to put it, okay? Trust that she can put it where you need it to play the cross in and go with that.”

“I--” Blake starts out, and then bites down on her cheek visibly. Her cheeks flush, maybe from embarrassment, maybe from the three-hour practice they’re at the end of, maybe from the chill in the air that the rain brought down on them. “Okay. I’ll make it work.”

“Great,” Yang says brightly, clapping a messy gloved hand on her shoulder with a grin. “And then after that, we’re all getting drinks. You gotta spend time with your team, Belladonna, and you’re not  _ really _ part of the family until you beat Ruby in a drinking contest.” She winks and takes off back to the sideline, leaving Blake to stare after her.

“You done completely undermining my authority yet?” Glynda says with a glare when Yang grabs a water bottle. 

“Not even a little bit,” Yang says, winking. She swallows half a bottle’s worth of water and tosses the rest to Glynda, who neatly sidesteps it and lets it clatter down onto the bench. “Good talk, coach.”

She jogs back towards the goal, detouring towards the middle of the field after Ruby leaps onto her back so she can deposit her at the midfield stripe. Blake’s over on the wrong side of the field, talking with Winter, who’s being imperious and intimidating, as she does, but Blake looks to be holding her own. Yang lets Ruby hop off her back with a cheer-- she loves playing in the mud, for some reason Yang’s never been able to relate to-- and heads back to her position, taking her time to allow Blake and Winter to have their conversation.

“What’d you say to her?” Weiss says, arms folded over her chest as she stares at her sister and Blake. “Winter looks like she’s going to murder her.”

“Winter always looks like she’s going to murder someone,” Yang says. She bumps her hip against Weiss’s. “Belladonna’s gonna figure it out, don’t worry.”

“That means you threatened her, didn’t you?” Pyrrha says from Weiss’s other side, stretching one of her quads with a groan and wobbling on one leg in the unsteady mud. Weiss doesn’t look away from Winter and Blake, but reaches out to steady her, forearm locking against hers habitually. 

“You have no proof of that,” Yang says.

“She definitely did,” Weiss says at the same time. “The question is  _ what _ she threatened her with.”

“You should really have more faith in your captain, you know,” Yang says, shoving at Weiss lazily. 

“Should I?” Weiss says absently. She lets out a sigh when Blake finally jogs off across the field. “Oh, finally, they’re done.”

“Impatient much?” Yang says with a scoff, as if she hadn’t been trying to leave since it started raining an hour ago.

“It’s date night,” Pyrrah says, still holding onto Weiss for balance and leaning forward enough that she can offer her own glare to Yang. “You’re going to make us late.”

“Oh, you mean the standing dinner reservation you two have every single Wednesday at the same restaurant that never changes? How could I have forgotten about  _ that?”  _ Yang rolls her eyes. “You’ll make your boring date night, don’t worry.”

“I trust you zero percent, Xiao Long,” Weiss says with a huff, finally letting go of Pyrrha so she can move out wider. “Tick tock.”

“So ungrateful,” Yang mutters, even as she flips the ball up into her hands and launches it back upfield, this time for Ilia to collect and play back across to Penny and Winter. “This is what I get for being a selfless captain and pep talking people?”

“Shut up, Yang!” Velvet calls out from where she’s holding a high line with Nora, matching pace with Blake and Ilia. 

“Ungrateful,” Yang huffs out, tracking to the right as the ball settles at Winter’s feet, ready for the switch.

Blake breaks past Nora, pulling up a half stride so the ball can land at her feet, and from the sidelines Glynda yells out something that sounds like excitement for the first time in hours. Yang switches back towards the left, keeping Coco in her eyeline as Blake takes one long touch, and then another, too fast even with the ball for Nora or Velvet to keep up with, and slams the ball across the top of the box, right into Coco’s path.

Coco one-touches it towards the near post, the same cannonball of a shot that she’s always specialized in, and Yang flings herself to the left, one arm stretching out just enough to tip the shot wide and into the post. She’s up on her feet before the rebound has touched ground again, halfway between her and Blake, and she sprints towards it. 

Blake’s  _ fast _ , almost as fast as Ruby, a blur of dark hair and muddy uniform bearing down on the ball, and Yang slides out towards it, feet-first, mud coating her side, and the next thing she knows Blake’s airborne and then slamming down on top of her with a yelp.

All of the air flashes out of Yang’s lungs, followed by a pathetic groan because Blake somehow landed dead on top of her, elbows in her ribcage and forehead slamming into her shoulder.

“Shit,” Yang gasps out, voice petering out into a whine. “You okay?”

“Did you just try to murder me?” Blake says with a groan of her own. Her hands squelch in the mud as she pushes herself up, just enough to take some of her weight off of Yang’s lungs, and quite abruptly the whistle from Glynda, the concern from teammates hurrying over towards them, even the fact that Yang’s absolutely covered in mud and in desperate need of a shower and her ribs are bruised now, all vanishes because Blake Belladonna-- hotshot midfielder who was scooped up at the very end of the transfer window, faster than any defender in the league and twice as pretty-- is practically laying on top of her, covered in sweat and mud and rainwater and being  _ irritatingly _ beautiful in her sudden concern about the fact that Yang’s basically stopped breathing, and Yang can feel every pinpoint of contact between them.

“I’m okay,” Yang manages to say. Her hands hover awkwardly out at her side because Blake Belladonna is still laying on top of her. “Just got the wind knocked out of me.”

Blake finally pushes her way up, leaning back into a crouch at Yang’s side, one of her hands falling to Yang’s shoulder uncertainly. “Are you sure? You could have a concussion.”

“Not with a head that hard,” Nora says cheerfully, appearing at Yang’s other side and plopping down to sit in the mud next to her. “We done now, cap?”

“Ask the boss,” Yang says, holding her hands out with a whine until Nora and Blake both stand up and grab one to haul her up. “If it was up to me we would’ve gone home an hour ago and I wouldn’t have been  _ tackled _ by someone who will not be named.”

“Subtle,” Blake says drily. 

Glynda’s voice cuts through the rain again. “That’s all for today!”

“Fucking finally!” Coco shouts, slinging an arm around Velvet and dragging her towards the locker rooms, practically racing Weiss and Pyrrha.

“Go on without me,” Yang says dramatically, a hand pressed against her side. “Save yourselves.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Nora says, bounding off immediately.

“Traitor,” Yang mutters.

“Are you actually hurt?” Blake says, ignoring her dramatics. 

“What, don’t tell me you’re  _ worried _ about me, are you?” Yang winks, gratuitous and overblown as always, and is rewarded by a darker flush on Blake’s cheeks.

“You’re the starting keeper  _ and _ the captain,” Blake says flatly. “If I broke you during our first practice I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Yang says, leaning closer. “You have to try a  _ lot _ harder than that to break me, Belladonna.” 

Blake clears her throat and looks away, over to where the rest of the team is trudging towards the locker rooms. Yang hooks her arm through Blake’s, grinning when she jerks in surprise, and sets off towards the lockers as well, dragging her along. 

“So,” Yang says conversationally, as if she hadn’t just been on the ground with Blake on top of her and thinking an entire book’s worth of inappropriate thoughts about how Blake’s body pressed against hers. “First practice on the greatest team in the history of ever. Thoughts?”

“Are you always like this?” Blake mutters out, though notably not trying to pull her arm free and almost very nearly leaning closer. 

“Yep,” Yang says, popping the  _ p _ and blowing her a kiss. She disentangles their arms so she can step ahead and pull the door to the locker rooms open, bowing gallantly. “And you’re welcome for that.”

“Does the fact that you tried to murder me mean that I get out of team drinks tonight?” Blake says, arms folded over her chest.

“Well, in a way,” Yang says, seizing the opportunity. She leans closer, glancing down towards Blake’s mouth for a split second just because she can and she wants to see if Blake will blush darker-- which she  _ does _ \-- and grins, slow and heated. “No team drinks, because you’re getting captain drinks instead.”

She waits until she can hear the way Blake’s breath hitches audibly and then pulls back, leaning a shoulder against the doorway. “Gotta size you up, Belladonna,” she says, looking her up and down lazily. 

She slides past, leaving Blake to stare after her, glancing back and winking again just to see her blush some more.

“Stop hitting on the new girl,” Ruby says with a sigh. “You’re going to break her brain.”

“I dunno,” Yang says, flopping down on the bench beside her. “This one is gonna be different, I think.” She looks back over to where Blake’s still standing by the door, arms folded over her chest, blush fading and a determined set to her jaw, staring unwaveringly back at Yang. 

Yang drops to one side with a grunt, leaning all her weight against Ruby and ignoring her whine of protest. Across the room, Blake raises an eyebrow at her, challenging, and it burns deep in Yang’s chest.

“Yeah, she’s different.”


End file.
